Sunday, 19 July 2009

Message of support from Alex Callinicos

I’m really sorry I can’t take part in the rally against the Miss England pageant. I belong to the generation that was radicalized by participation in the movements of the 1960s and 1970s. I vividly remember the Miss World protests of 1970 as an education and inspiration. It is a scandal that the same struggles are having to be waged again today – though now the exploitation of women’s bodies is justified less by explicit ideologies of male domination than by a culture of commodified hedonism. The links that bind the oppression of women to the capitalist pursuit of profit are evident for all to see today. So I hope you give Miss England hell and let’s fight together to get rid of the system that breeds such humiliation and suffering.